Archives for megagames
Days of Fire by Samuel Katz [Book Review]
I picked up Days of Fire as part of my background reading for the Divided Land megagame last Saturday. Samuel Katz was a member of Irgun in the mid 40s, and Days of Fire is his story of how Irgun pushed Israel into being. Days of Fire Days of Fire is aptly titled, Palestine from 1944 until the end of the British Mandate was a turbulent place. Thousands of people were killed or wounded in the violence and more were dispossessed. Even before the British withdrew there was a civil war. Irgun were an extremist breakaway group of the Revisionist Zionists. A bit like PIRA three decades later. Mostly they tried to cause chaos and avoid killing people, although sometimes their warnings went unheeded, like the bombing of the King David Hotel. Katz started as a secretary to the South…
2018 Resolutions
English: New Year's Resolutions postcard (Photo credit: Wikipedia) I have been posting my new year resolutions in the blog for the past four years, so I'm going to continue this with my 2018 resolutions. But before my 2018 resolutions I think we should look at how well I've done on the 2017 resolutions. 2017 Resolutions I had a few 2017 resolutions. However I must have been feeling overly optimistic in January 2017! Here they are: Finish my Open University degree (in June if I pass both courses) Design a megagame (1689, in the latter half of the year) Write 50 blog posts, edit Perfects and Noren, write another novel (probably NaNoWriMo 2017) and a history book Get my weight into the 12 - stone range and keep it there. Finish my Degree I did this, it was a lot of…
1866 Megagame – Offside Report
The Prussian Team for Game 2 of 1866 and all that assembles. Yesterday I played in an 1866 megagame, well in one of two 1866 megagames. Megagame Makers ran two simultaneous megagames about the 1866 bruderkrieg (between the Prussians and the Italians on one side and the Austrians and their allies on the other). One of the most interesting things about today's 1866 megagame was that there were two entirely identical games going on at the same time. The only difference between the 1866 megagames were the players. Both games had the same briefings, maps, counters and mechanics. The end results were quite different, although in both cases fairly close to historic. Certainly within the bounds of plausibility. My role in the 1866 Megagame Unusually I was playing the megagame. This was because Alexander came to play in his first…
Milmud – Guest Post today about 1689 Highland Battles
Today's blog post is a guest post on Military Muddling, AKA Milmud. Milmud is the blog and club newsletter for Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG). CLWG are a group of activist game designers. Most of the Megagame Makers designers belong to CLWG, including Jim Wallman who brought us the Universe roleplaying games and Watch the Skies. I'm a member of CLWG and have been for about 20 years. At the 2015 CLWG conference I ran a session on the Highland Battles of 1689. This is going to form part of a 1689 Megagame planned for late 2017. You can read more about my game design efforts over on Hot Blood and Cold Steel. Link to Milmud Here's the post on milmud Highland Battles 1689 - onside report. I found the session very useful and I learnt a lot from it.…
New Books 2015 pt.4
In a fit of enthusiasm after the Watch the Skies 2 megagame I wrote up some ideas that have been floating around in my head for a megagame of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 (or rather of the military campaigns that followed it in 1689). This lead to a little more book buying (as well as a trip to the Works with a few other bits too. The result was six more books in my to read pile, bringing the running total for 2015 to 29. So I need to read 34 to meet my target from my New Year Resolution. All of these books are ones I have bought myself, no ARCs among them. Primarily they have been acquired for the purpose of research into a potential game that I will run in 2017 or 2018 when I've had…